


The Past Is A Different Country (The Jumping Off Mix)

by livii



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-02
Updated: 2006-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/pseuds/livii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory is not constant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past Is A Different Country (The Jumping Off Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Indelible](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2718) by nwhepcat. 



> Thanks to elen_ancalima and mothninja on LJ for beta-reading. This was written for Remix 2006.

**IV.**

Maybe, Oz thought, he'd been dreaming this whole world. If he closed his eyes and went to sleep, when he woke up he'd be sitting down to dinner with a mother and father and 2.4 siblings, framed portraits from Sears on the wall, laughing at a bad vampire movie afterwards, eating popcorn and petting the family dog.

The sun was so hot, and he knew he was falling, and he thought _maybe this is where I disembark_.

 

 **I.**

He'd been travelling for so long, through dusty and hot countries, negotiating with barter and gestures, always standing out with his white, white skin and his penchant for asking questions about mystical things that were better left alone. So arriving back in California - with grown-up, one-eyed, fellow-Africa-traveller and Council-working Xander, no less - was incredibly odd. Floors were sparkling clean and everything was shiny-squeaky-new; and the smells in the air, smog and freshness and ocean and the hustle and bustle of humans superimposed in plastic and metal over everything else.

And then there was another smell, of idealism and freshly-washed hair and soft perfume and longing and Xander was being swept off his feet by a pretty young girl that Oz had never seen before in his life.

Xander called her 'Dawn' and they both looked at him as if this was the most obvious question he'd ever been asked, like "what's 2 plus 2" (only if you meditated hard enough, the numbers could blur into meaninglessness) or "isn't the sky blue" (only as the wolf it was black, and silver, and so many other colours in between).

 

 **II.**

He couldn't explain to Xander why he had to spend the day and night out at the crater that used to be Sunnydale. He knew that he couldn't spend another night in the beach house with him and the girl; he had accepted a lot of crazy things in his life with complete equanimity, but he couldn't sit there and pretend that the fact Xander and Dawn were _happy_ with being brainwashed by some mystical monks didn't freak him right out.

Why he hadn't been brainwashed as well cut into him even further.

So he went out, and he got himself lost, and he didn't have to worry about it for a while, which was the way he liked it.

 

 **V.**

He'd fucked it up out there in the sun and now he was stuck in this hospital bed, and there were machines and needles and a constant _beep-beep, beep-beep_ and smell of antiseptic and underlying taste on his tongue of pain, of fear, of death.

Xander was in his room and he could smell him, the scents jumbled and confused. He was sleeping with Dawn; he was in love with Dawn. He was desperate to have Oz be okay, another Scooby to the end; he was desperate to have Oz stay asleep and keep his goddamn mouth shut about remembering and forgetting and all that shit.

Oz had never been able to do what other people wanted, not really.

His brain was fuzzy with heat and drugs and yet he could see it. It was like when he was meditating - the world partitioned, and you could see possibilities, regrets, choices. It was there - the road taken, the road stolen, only he had four feet in one and six feet in another and right from wrong kept slipping away from him, getting tangled up in each other and his own insecurity, confusion.

He wasn't used to feeling this way anymore, and so he told Xander what Xander didn't need to hear.

After Xander left Oz closed his eyes and thought _this is not the way it's supposed to be_ and he thought _I want to get off, now_.

 

 **III.**

He was sitting beside the crater, finally tired after hiking halfway around. Sitting made him think and he thought of dinner last night, where Xander and Dawn had tried to remind him of memories that had never existed, never happened.

He shook his head and looked down into the crater, a huge hole with no signs of life, no signs even that it had ever been a town. Xander hadn't wanted to spend any time here; he wondered what Dawn would think of it. He thought it might scare her, probably as much as much as it scared him. The crater was vast and deep and it contained two sets of memories, and neither of them could reach both. He stood up and shouted into the crater, wanting to hear his voice for once, wanting to test himself. He felt the wolf emerging and he didn't fight it, scratching at his skin, trying to pick up the hunt, wanting, wanting, to be alive.

 

 **VI.**

He was still in the hospital but he'd sent Xander away for good; honest Xander who had his life on track, the twists and turns unmapped but the main course straight and true. Xander who didn't need a guy hanging about who remembered when his girlfriend didn't exist; Xander who was part of something that Oz had been shut off from. He supposed he was officially out of the Scoobies, now. He wondered if they'd want him to send his badge back. He wondered if they'd ever had badges in the first place, and if not, why not. He smiled as he thought that if anyone might have made Scooby badges, it would have been little Dawn.

He thought of frowning then, but the effort was too much and besides, he didn't want to deny her existence anymore. They lived in different worlds and she couldn't touch his, but it had never really been his anyway. He floated around the group, through the group, but she was Buffy's sister and that was what had to be the most important fact, now.

He smiled again and he thought, _when's the last time I did that so often?_ and then he thought _maybe these drugs are all right, I have to remember to ask for an extra prescription_.

He stretched and reached over to his nightstand, where his few possessions had been piled up. He picked up the handful of small rocks he'd put in his pocket at the crater, before going all crazy out there, and rolled them about in his hand. He remembered something Willow had taught him a long time ago, maybe even a different lifetime ago, about memories of the dead, remembrances of lives lived.

 _Thump_ , he dropped one, a quiet sound against the linoleum floor, and he thought of the lingering smell of Xander, who had brought him back here and shut him out as well, and who was destined for a happiness that made Oz feel slightly stupidly pleased.

 _Thump_ , he dropped one, slightly larger so the sound was a bit deeper, fuller, and he thought of Willow, and Buffy, and Giles, and Devon, and Cordelia, and Angel, and everything in Sunnydale that had made up his life and created a memory he couldn't trust, but that he knew was right.

 _Thump_ , he dropped the last few, several falling true but others hitting the side of the bed, the IV machine, and bouncing off into the corners of the room, like stones skipping across the water and he smiled and he thought of a girl whose whole life was like that and he thought _it's not so bad what I'm stuck with after all_.

He thought _I've got to get off these drugs before I start writing angsty lyrics_ and he thought _maybe I can go up north and advertise for a band_ and he thought _can't say that a story like this won't help me get laid_ and he laughed out loud, already writing a new history that was all his own.


End file.
